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Rubinstein or Rabinowitz = Robbins or Robinson (novelist Harold Robbins, Broadway's Jerome Robbins)
Levy, Levin, Leibowitz, Levine = Lewis (comic actor Jerry Lewis)
Kaufman = Kay (comedian/actor Danny Kaye)
Greenberg, Greenspan, Green = Green
Goldberg, Goldblum, Goldbaum, Goldstein = Gold or Gould (actor Eliot Gould)
Horowitz, Horwitz, Hirsch, Hershfeld, Hershberg, Herschel = Howard or Harris (the 3 Stooges - Howard's)
Cohen = Cowan
Bernstein, Birnbaum = Burns (comedian George Burns)
Last edited by slowlane3; 05-07-2016 at 11:47 AM..
Spanish. Hundreds of millions of Hispanic people have names ending in "EZ" and occasionally "AZ" or "IZ".
No. Those are unrelated to German words and names, like Hertz and Crotz. I think the poster meant, what region or German tribe is that type of name from.
I don't know, KatietheGreat, but someone on a German heritage/genealogy site could probably tell you, if there is such a site.
As Ruth 4 Truth mentioned, the original Prussians were neither slavic, nor Germanic. The area started to Germanicise with the Tuetonic knights. The Germans were then able to gradually squeeze out the slavic influence as well.
That aside, there are bibles published in the 1780s using the Baltic East Prussian languge. I have read an account written by a young person about the evacuation / flight of the population in 1945 with the approach of the vengenace minded Soviet armies.
The person (born in about 1930 in a rural area) related that his first language was Prussian dialect German. The Prussian language may have already been extinct in the 1930s even with the elderly. My guess is that the language went extinct in the 18th century as Germany industrialized and the rate of Germanication increased.
The language went extinct pretty quickly under the Germans, who passed a law making the language illegal to use, as soon as the Teutonic Knights took over. It survived in a corner of Poland until around 1850 by some accounts, only into the 1700's by others. However, Prussian vocabulary entered the vernacular German in Eastern Prussia, creating a distinct dialect from High or Low German.
Stalin forced relocation of the entire population to Germany. According to the Polish/Prussian historian I mentioned earlier, the indigenous Prussians, those who even had any recollection of their roots, protested, saying they're not Germans, they're not Poles or other Slavs, they're the original inhabitants of eastern Prussia and should be allowed to remain in their homeland. But Stalin wanted to clear the place of all residents so that he could start fresh with peoples transferred in from elsewhere--mainly Russians, to ensure loyalty to and control by Russia.
He considered everyone who remained in Prussia after the war to be enemy combatants or sympathizers, and forced a march on foot in the depth of winter across Poland to Germany. Naturally, a lot of people died en route. He also loaded up cattle cars with Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, because they took Germany's side during the war in a desperate bid for guaranteed independence from Russia, and hauled them off by the hundreds of thousands to Central Asia and Siberia. Among them were ethnic Prussian descendants, who had fled the Teutonic invasion hundreds of years previously, seeking refuge among their fellow Balts. Beginning with Khrushchev's deStalinization, they were allowed to return.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 05-07-2016 at 12:01 PM..
If a surname ends in "Y" or "AN" - or contains "GH" - or starts with "MC" or "O' " - usually IRISH (although final "Y" can also be Russian or Hungarian, or "AN" can be Armenian)
starts with "MAC - SCOTTISH
ends in "IC" or "ICH" - Balkan - Yugoslavian region
ends in "SKI" or "ICZ" - POLISH
ends in "ENKO" or "CUK" or "CZUK" - UKRANIAN
ends in "ENEN" or "ONEN" or contains "KK" = FINNISH
starts with "VAN" "TEN" or "TER" , or ends with "MA" or "STRA" = DUTCH or FLEMISH
ends with "EIRA" or "ES" = PORTUGUESE (although "ES" can also be Greek")
ends with "OV", "OFF", "EV" or "SKY" = RUSSIAN
ends with "SEN" or "RUP" = usually DANISH (although some "SEN" names are found in Sweden and Belgium)
ends with "LAND" = NORWEGIAN
contains "SZ" or in some cases "CZ" - or ends in "TH" = HUNGARIAN
ends with "ORN" - THAILAND
ends with "AY" (exception, "Gray") or starts with "MAG" - PHILIPPINES
ends with "EH" - IRAN / PERSIAN
ends with "OGLU" or "CI" - TURKISH
ends with "OS" or "AS" or "IS" (exception, "Davis") or "ES" - GREEK (although "ES" can also be Portuguese)
ends with "IAN" or "YAN" - Armenian
While I can usually identify the ethic group last names belong to, even if they are anglicized a bit, a persons last name in America is often not indicative of their own ethnic background.
If a surname ends in "Y" or "AN" - or contains "GH" - or starts with "MC" or "O' " - usually IRISH (although final "Y" can also be Russian or Hungarian, or "AN" can be Armenian)
starts with "MAC - SCOTTISH
ends in "IC" or "ICH" - Balkan - Yugoslavian region
ends in "SKI" or "ICZ" - POLISH
ends in "ENKO" or "CUK" or "CZUK" - UKRANIAN
ends in "ENEN" or "ONEN" or contains "KK" = FINNISH
starts with "VAN" "TEN" or "TER" , or ends with "MA" or "STRA" = DUTCH or FLEMISH
ends with "EIRA" or "ES" = PORTUGUESE (although "ES" can also be Greek")
ends with "OV", "OFF", "EV" or "SKY" = RUSSIAN
ends with "SEN" or "RUP" = usually DANISH (although some "SEN" names are found in Sweden and Belgium)
ends with "LAND" = NORWEGIAN
contains "SZ" or in some cases "CZ" - or ends in "TH" = HUNGARIAN
ends with "ORN" - THAILAND
ends with "AY" (exception, "Gray") or starts with "MAG" - PHILIPPINES
ends with "EH" - IRAN / PERSIAN
ends with "OGLU" or "CI" - TURKISH
ends with "OS" or "AS" or "IS" (exception, "Davis") or "ES" - GREEK (although "ES" can also be Portuguese)
ends with "IAN" or "YAN" - Armenian
The "-ski" names can also be Jewish. None of the "-sky" names in Russian are actual ethnic Russians. They're either Polish descendants or Jewish. Names containing "sz" (pronounced "sh") or "cz" (pronounced: ch) can also be Czech or Polish. Names ending in "-aly"--pronounced "ai" (composer Kodaly, psychologist Czikszentmihaly) are Hungarian. Or possibly Hungarian Roma (Gypsy).
As an adoptee who found out my surname at birth was "King", I thought this was an indication of English or Irish ancestry. But later when I found my birth family I discovered it had been changed from the German "Koenig" by my great grandfather when he immigrated to the US.
This thread gets me thinking about someone who used to work in the same library system as I do. Just hearing their first name, you might think they were a black man, but this person was actually a Native-American woman.
What's funny is when I looked it up years ago it was said to be from Prussia ,and you've
written some great things about Prussia.I was aware Prussia was once Baltic too.
when I had my dna tested the first time with strs i came up almost totally polish, and the great thing is I had dreamt years before the dna test that I was in a german village and a woman told me if I caught the plane back in time Id be in poland,suggesting my german ancestry was Polish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
No. Those are unrelated to German words and names, like Hertz and Crotz. I think the poster meant, what region or German tribe is that type of name from.
I don't know, KatietheGreat, but someone on a German heritage/genealogy site could probably tell you, if there is such a site.
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